Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas of Finland waves to the crowd during the driver's parade before the Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal on Sunday, June 9, 2019. Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette

When Valtteri Bottas joined Mercedes in 2017 after four impressive seasons with the Williams team, many thought he would be an instant championship contender who would make life difficult for his multiple world champion teammate Lewis Hamilton.

It didn’t turn out that way, with Bottas quickly becoming the subject of stories speculating about why he wasn’t living up to expectations. It’s difficult to blame those who doubted Bottas after he didn’t seem to have the stuff needed to win consistently in a car that was more often than not the fastest in the field.

After bit of a personal reboot following the 2018 season delivered a more relaxed and determined Bottas to the grid this season, his new approach paid off almost immediately.

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas of Finland waves to the crowd during the driver’s parade before the Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal on Sunday, June 9, 2019.Allen McInnis /
Montreal Gazette

Bottas dropped the championship gauntlet on Hamilton with a masterful performance to win the season opening Australian Grand Prix and take the early title lead. Another win and three poles followed, which has this season shaping up as a straight title fight between the Mercedes duo.

“Obviously I’m pleased with the season — how it has been started compared to recent ones — that’s very positive,” Bottas said.

“It’s not only me, it’s the team, but it’s a good battle with Lewis at the moment.”

The strong start by Mercedes and its pair of drivers brings back memories of the close and often bitter battles between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who fought tooth-and-nail for every bit of asphalt during their four seasons as teammates. Rosberg left the team suddenly after winning the 2016 drivers’ title and was replaced by Bottas.

So, what changed for the 29-year-old from Finland?

“There are many things in this sport that can affect things for sure,” Bottas said.

“Sometimes you’re more lucky for sure, sometimes very much less so, but I honestly think why I’ve been able to improve year-by-year is work. Work with the team, work with my ability, focus on all the single details, and if you work hard it’s only a matter of time before things start to go right.”

While much was made of Bottas’ more edgy bearded look and increased focus this year, other changes inside the team also influenced his surge.

The Mercedes squad shuffled things in the garage a bit during the off-season, moving some of the key players around after the departure of Bottas’ race engineer for the manufacturer’s Formula E team.

“Whenever you have new people around, it makes you think about some things differently,” Bottas said.

“It can open up some new routes on the setup and the direction. It has started really well. We have been learning a lot as an engineering team all the time and it’s getting better and better. So far, so good.”

For his part, Hamilton acknowledged his teammate’s step up in performance, but also expressed a bit of dismay in losing his No. 2 engineer to Bottas, and the help it’s given his main rival. It might not be the stuff that caused a massive rift between the five-time champion and Rosberg, but Hamilton didn’t seem to be completely comfortable with the decision.

“This year he has my No. 2 engineer — he is learning a lot from that,” Hamilton said.

“The things that he’s doing on track, which my engineer has obviously encouraged him to do, the things I was doing with settings, he is doing now and he’s definitely moved in the right direction there.”

The other major difference in Bottas this year is the speed he’s found on Saturdays in qualifying. His three poles in the first six races already surpassed his total from all of 2018.

Some performances have simply been stunning.

In Spain last month, Bottas started at the front after outpacing qualifying maestro Hamilton for the pole by a whopping 0.634 seconds.

“In terms of qualifying performance, it has been so far my best start of the year in F1, but it’s not only about Saturdays,” he said.

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“For sure, it’s super-important depending on the track, but also the race performance, start performance. I think it’s going to be one of the key things for sure.”

Heading into the Canadian Grand Prix, Bottas had outduelled Hamilton 3-2 for poles — Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took the other — although his teammate had four wins to the Finn’s two. The last race in Monaco didn’t help Bottas’ title challenge after Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen torpedoed his Mercedes in the pit lane during a safety-car period and caused the Finn to get a flat. The incident sent Bottas from second to fourth, although he was promoted to third after a penalty to Verstappen.

Going into Montreal, Hamilton led the championship with 137 points to Bottas’ 120. Drivers get 25 points for a win. At the same point last year, Bottas was already 42 points behind Hamilton, who had two wins and two poles, while the Finn had none.

Bottas’ resurgence reflects the pace he showed in four seasons with Williams, where he consistently outclassed his teammates by a good margin in an okay car. He was so impressive that many pegged the Finnish driver as a future world champion even before he signed with front-runner Mercedes.

That move proved underwhelming initially after Bottas won only three times to Hamilton’s nine in 2017 and saw him finish behind runner-up Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari in the championship. It also marked the first time since the hybrid era began in 2014 that the two Mercedes drivers didn’t end the season 1-2 in points. Things went from bad to worse for Bottas last year, where he failed to take a single win compared with Hamilton’s 11, and sagged to fifth overall in points as his teammate notched up another championship.

After emerging as a credible threat to Hamilton with his fast start, there’s no doubt that Bottas is riding higher than he ever has at Mercedes. That might be a huge positive, but Bottas isn’t about to let the 2019 success go to his head and risk getting ahead of himself.

“It’s a long season ahead — I do realize that,” he said.

“Just keep doing what we’re doing and the list of things that we can do better as a team is still long. So we need to focus on that.”